This celebrated Portuguese wordless picturebook provides a fabulous route to discuss the human responsibility towards solving the issue of ocean and beach pollution. Children and young people who hear news about the excess of plastic in the ocean will find solace and good humour in this story, in which a man is so fed up of the mess on his local beach that he decides to take action. He picks up all the rubbish, assembling it into a large pile. The twist of the story comes as the reader sees that he has built a boat out of it. The clearly expressed themes of sustainable development and social responsibility result in a representation of proactive participation in rectifying this timely social issue. With this in mind, A Day at the Beach is a great example of a picturebook that fits both a younger and older audience. While 8-11 year olds will be able to unpick the themes of the work and connect it to their own experiences, 12-15 year olds will also be able to use the work to create dialogue in a classroom environment
